Kinding Sindaw
Potri with Giwan Mastura (Photo Image: Courtesy of Kinding Sindaw)
In Honor of the Ancestors: Indigenous Living Traditions from the Philippines in Diaspora
January 11 - January 26, 2024
La MaMa Experimental Theater Club and Kinding Sindaw announce a new exhibition, In Honor of the Ancestors: Indigenous Living Traditions from the Philippines in Diaspora, running Thursday, January 11 - Sunday, January 26, 2024 from 1pm - 7pm, at La MaMa Galleria, 47 Great Jones Street, NYC, 10012.
Through multiple constellations of photography and video, scenography and sacred heirlooms, the exhibition tells the story of Kinding Sindaw by celebrating the lives of its hereditary and creative forebears from both Mindanao and downtown New York. Artists whose work appears in the exhibition: the late Bai Labi Hadji Amina, Sultan Mamintal Dirampaten, Corky Lee, June Maeda, Sultan Mohammad Giwan Mastura, and Ellen Stewart.
Drawing on techniques from Theater of the Oppressed, visitors will be invited to take off their shoes and participate as 'spect-actors' within an immersive installation conceived as a community space for live performance and ceremony, lectures, discussions, and workshops: including beginners' classes led by master kulintang gong musicians, introductory exercises to pangalay movement healing, and betel-nut rituals, offering immersive transformational wellness and healing experiences.
Back home, oral traditions passed down from the ancestors weave inseparably through everyday life as kinding (dance), sindaw (to spark a light), silat (martial arts), bayok (chanting) and panaroon (extemporaneous poetry). To preserve this aliveness, Kinding Sindaw will unleash its archives through the lens of salsilah, which to the Muslims of Mindanao can refer both to a clan’s 'genealogy' as well as the recited litany of its names. From the Arabic for 'chain' or 'connection', salsilah expands understandings of archival practice by encompassing the oral, performative, and ritual dimensions of provenance and collective memory.
For press inquiries, images and interview request, please contact the gallery at
lamamagalleria@gmail.com
Opening Reception:
Thursday, January 11, 2024
6:00pm - 8:00pm
Attendance is available with a suggested donation of $5-$20
In Honor of the Ancestors: Indigenous Living Traditions from the Philippines in Diaspora is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
About Kinding Saw
A non-profit dance theater and resident of La MaMa Experimental Theater Club, Kinding Sindaw reclaims and revitalizes the living traditions and oral histories native to the island of Mindanao in the Southern Philippines, and advocates for the self-determination of 63 Indigenous nations, including the Bukidnon, Maguindanao, Maranao, Tausug, and T'boli. Kinding Sindaw exists to assert, preserve, reclaim, and re-create the traditions of dance, music, martial arts, storytelling, and orature of the indigenous peoples of Mindanao, Southern Philippines.
Founded by a Meranao Bai Labi, Tradition and Culture Bearer, Potri Ranka Manis, Kinding Sindaw recreates the oral traditions of ancestral art forms from Mindanao and is a resident company of La MaMa Experimental Theater Company. Our mission is to educate and enlighten communities about the history and cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines. Through the use of indigenous music, dance and cultural art forms, we serve as an important educational and cultural resource in New York City. We aim to promote the advocacy for indigenous peoples, as well as increase awareness of universal themes that are part of the human experience. The range of our programs also integrates the health benefits of the ancestral movements that we show and teach to our audiences. Through these cultural art forms, we advocate for the preservation of natural resources that are the livelihood of the indigenous peoples. Wellness and healing rituals are also embodied in the repertoire of Kinding Sindaw to increase health and healing awareness of participants and audiences.
